Kirkland Productions

Scott Ervin

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I was in my thirteenth year of teaching when Scott and Love and Logic saved my classroom, my students, and my love of teaching. In my school, we had hand-picked the most disruptive students in first and second grade and put them in my classroom in hopes of changing their behavior, so they would become productive citizens in our school and in our world. In order to change their behavior, we used behavior charts, color charts, earning/losing privileges, phone calls with parents, parents coming to school, a token economy, food rewards, candy rewards, party rewards, coupon rewards — you name it, we tried it. Nothing worked. Everything was a gimmick, a game, or a system the students could beat or work around or find loopholes. I felt like I was teaching them how to circumvent the judicial system instead of abiding by it. I cried on the way to school each day because I knew I was failing my kids, and because I didn’t want to endure another day with them. Then I met Scott. Scott empowered me. He gave me confidence, answers, and a way of life in my classroom that increased everyone’s happiness and safety ten-fold. Not only that, but I got to teach and my students got to learn! My students improved their math scores and their reading scores. They created projects and wrote letters. Kids who were flipping desks, throwing chairs, scratching teachers, flipping off peers, and being defiant and unpleasant were excelling socially and academically. I was no longer anxious about going to school, and neither were they! Their lives and mine changed in less than a month thanks to Scott and his training in Love and Logic.

Beth Perry, Lakota City Schools, Ohio

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Bestselling Author of Permanent Midnight and I, Fatty

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I teach in a self-contained Behavior Disorders (BD) room at Mt. Ayr Elementary School in Mt. Ayr, Iowa. I’ve been teaching for thirteen years and have been in this specific room for three years. I work with students who have the most challenging behaviors in the building. Our building hosts students from kindergarten through sixth grade, approximately 300 students. My students were removed from their general education classroom after numerous office referrals for negative behavior, parent complaints, and general frustration from the classroom teachers. When I first began working with these students, I had no real plan for dealing with the behaviors. I would bribe, offer tokens and rewards, punish, raise my voice….honestly, nothing was working and we were all very frustrated. Then, our school contacted The Kid Whisperer and everything changed! The Calm and Assertive techniques that we now use have completely transformed my teaching and our days are now infinitely more positive and productive. My students understand that I cannot and will not ever make them do anything. They are free to choose their behaviors and they know consequences logically and naturally follow negative behaviors. It really is that simple. Learning how to use Love and Logic skills and Calm/Assertive procedures has been a truly rewarding and fun experience for all of us. Thank you, Kid Whisperer, for helping us transform our classroom into the fun place that we wanted but just didn’t know how to get. We are so happy!

Melanie Knapp, Mt. Ayr Elementary Community Schools, Iowa

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Bestselling Author of Permanent Midnight and I, Fatty

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Working directly with Scott has been the single most valuable experience I have had when it comes to learning how to work with challenging students. He has trained me to use Calm and Assertive procedures, as well as skills from Love and Logic, to be successful in teaching my students this year. I believe that these skills have worked far better than any other skills I have been taught, and since I have been trained by Scott, my quality of teaching (and life in general), has been positively transformed. I am less-stressed, slower-to-anger, and I truly feel that I am making a difference in the lives of my students.

In the beginning of this school year, many of my students engaged in behaviors that were very distracting to the learning environment of the classroom. Some of my students flipped their desks, laid on the floor during instruction, left the classroom without my permission, screamed cusswords at me and other students, engaged in fights daily, and refused to do their school-work. I attempted to use various behavior charts, the schoolwide Class Dojo, timeouts, parent phone calls, calls to administration, and nothing was truly helping. I started using techniques learned from Scott (such as empathy and logical consequences) and I can say, without a doubt, that my classroom has been completely transformed. I no longer see any of the issues listed above, and very seldom have to call for administration to assist with challenging students in my classroom. My students are respectful, responsible, and hold themselves accountable for their own actions. They are self-regulated, and they value their education. This is an incredible feeling to have as an educator.

I truly feel that the skills I have learned from Scott have made me effective in managing behaviors in my classroom. I have been told by multiple people that I have strong classroom management skills and I give all credit to my training with Scott Ervin. With that being said, I think I would benefit from having more training from Scott, and I also think that other staff would benefit from attending Professional Developments by him as well.